Intelligent Resilient FABRIC (IRF) refers to a technique which utilizes a “stacking apparatus”. The stacking apparatus is formed by interconnecting multiple devices via stacking ports. An IRF is illustrated in FIG. 1. The stacking apparatus is called a FABRIC, and each device constituting the FABRIC is called a unit (member device). When multiple units form a FABRIC, they become one entity for management and utilization. Port numbers and exchanging capacity of a FABRIC can be increased at any time by increasing the number of units in the FABRIC, thus the FABRIC has remarkable extensibility. Further, reliability of a FABRIC can be improved by making some of the units serve as backup for others. In addition, a FABRIC is managed as one stacking apparatus which facilitates management work of users.
However, the above prior art has drawbacks in that: when it is configured a same size for forwarding tables of all member devices in a stacking apparatus, the traffic forwarding capacity is determined according to the size of the forwarding tables of all the member devices. When a stacking apparatus is formed by member devices having forwarding tables which are different in size, the overall forwarding capacity of the stacking apparatus is determined by the member device which has the smallest forwarding table.